The Ethics of Prison Privatization

Despite what you may think, private prisons have existed in the United States dating all the way back to 1852, beginning with the San Quentin state prison. Private prisons did not truly become as common as they are today though until President Ronald Reagan led a large-scale effort for increased privatization around the United States during the 1980’s. One result of this effort was a large upswing in the number of private prisons. As a result of private prisons becoming more common place, it has been seen that compared to prisons run by the government, length of sentences have gone up within private prisons, while at the same time the treatment of prisoners has gone down. This topic interests me because I believe that it should never be in the best interests of such a large and powerful group to have as many people as possible in prison for as long as possible. In my opinion, it is not ethically correct on a basic human level to ever have it in people’s best interests to keep other people in prison. I chose this topic because I have always held a strong opinion on this topic but have never had the time to do extensive research on it and either confirm or dispel my current beliefs about it.

Crime rates are down in America, yet there is an unproportionately large number of Americans incarcerated. This paper will delve into and examine this problem and how it is closely linked to private prisons and the issues surrounding them. While private prisons claim to be cost effective and well-run, evidence has shown that these profit-driven companies ignore ethical consequences by purposefully lengthening prisoners’ sentences, target certain groups for incarceration and maintain despicable living standards for the prisoners; ultimately, these prisons have caused more harm than good for the state.

In America today, there is a trend in corrections of taking the duty of running prisons out of the hands of state and federal authorities and contracting it out to private organizations. Along with the drift to privatization is a plethora of research pertaining to the subject taking many different approaches to analyzing the effectiveness. The majority of research focuses on one of three areas. The first questioning whether or not it is cost effective to make the switch. The second being the ethical problems that can and have risen from the privatization of prisons. The third being a wide painting of the change and the implications it has on society as a whole.

Thesis: Private prisons actually exacerbate many of the issues they were designed to solve by incentivizing increased incarceration, and at the same time they produce lower value than regular prisons while ultimately costing more, such that private prisons should be abolished and incarceration should remain exclusively public.

Private prisons have a negative effect on states and local governments. Unfortunately, the number of private prisons has been increasing since their inception in 1983 causing further problems. For-profit prisons offer no real benefits and are bad investments for states. Furthermore, private prisons beleaguer communities with high turnover rates that hurt local economies. The demands of these institutions put an excessive burden on the local community’s infrastructure. Similarly, private prisons strain the county and city legal systems. More often than not, spin-off industries and economic benefits promised by the for-profit correction industry fail to appear. Additionally, private prisons are allowed to cherry pick the least expensive

Incentivizing Private Prison Reform through the Private Prisoner Rehabilitation Credit." New York University Law Review, vol. 89, no. 1, n.d., pp. 267-292. EBSCOhost.

Many people, since the early 1990s, when the privatization of prisons became popular, have had concerns that these companies would be more worried about profit than the prisoners human rights. Since then, private prisons have only increased in popularity. The original reason private prisons exist are cash strapped states were looking for an alternative to state and federal facilities to incarcerate inmates affordably. It is now a 5 billion industry. Many states pay millions of dollars each year to the private companies. Colorado has the largest number of private prisons in the country. “The state had not saved money by contracting out minimum security beds, and that more money is actually spent on private medium security beds than would be spent in a publicly operated institution.” (Mason) This study, performed in 2010 in Arizona, showed that they were not saving and were actually spending more money on the private facility than the public. The U.S. General Accounting Office, in 1996, went over five different research studies and came to the conclusion that there was no real evidence that prisons for profit saved the government and the general public money. Private

The economic components associated with maintaining and operating public prisons in the U.S. has become a prominent topic in recent years. Many anti-prison activist such a Angela Y. Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore contend that the involvement of private corporations and the prevailing social ideology have contributed to the radical expansion of prisons in America.

where's that goes on the privatization of prisons. Providing a broad study between public and

I have explored the negatives and positives of the private prison industry in the United States in addition to the impact privatizing prisons has had on inmate quality of life and inmate population sizes. While private prisons possibly provide a limited amount of cost savings to the taxpayer, the net impact of the private prison industry on the U.S. is negative. The history and idea of private prisons has been around since San Quentin was a private for-profit prison in 1852 (“Private Jails in the US,” 2017). The modern idea and practice of privatizing and profiting from prisons has been around since the early 1980’s when, “the Corrections Corporation of America pioneered the idea of running prisons for a profit (Pauly, 2017).”

I am writing this memo in response to a request to analyze the benefits and disadvantages of privatized prison systems. With the present economic environment, it is important to explore all options that could reduce the state’s deficit. This research project will explore the cost benefits to the privatization of California’s prison system, in comparison to other cost saving options. It will use statistics from other states that use private prison systems, as well as federal detention facilities that are privately managed. The purpose of this analysis is to reduce spending as a whole, and to not place a financial burden on local governments. It is also important to note that prison sentences

Nonetheless the minimal benefits that could originate from the privatization of prisons is outweighed by the extensive draw backs. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas reveals that the apparent savings and economic benefits of private prisons is drastically dramatized, “While you often hear the opposite, for-profit prisons do not save taxpayers money. State governments end up paying more because for-profit prison companies routinely underestimate the cost of oversight, healthcare, and background checks in their proposals. Studies have shown that building for-profit prisons results in no economic benefit to local communities” (ACLU of Texas 1). Furthermore the ACLU of Texas goes on to explain that, “the Safety and Conditions of these for-profit facilities are often more dangerous and have worse conditions than state-run facilities. They are found to have 50% more inmate-on-staff assaults and 2/3 more inmate-on-inmate assaults” (ACLU of Texas 3). Finally the ACLU of Texas explains that there is a gross lack of transparency, “For-profit prisons are exempt from many open government laws that apply to state-run facilities and do not have the same reporting requirements as state-run facilities. As a result, it is more difficult for a community to learn about what is happening inside private prisons, including abuse, unsanitary conditions, and misuse of tax dollars” (ACLU of Texas 2).

The U.S. prison system includes private prisons operated for profit by corporations contracted by the federal government (“Privatization Of”, n.d.). Years ago, the industry was heavily boosted by the “war on drugs” efforts of the Reagan

Dr. Seuss’ children’s books have given insight of good versus bad both during his life and long after. A famous quote in Horton Hears a Who reads, “A person’s a person, no matter how small”. No matter what situation this is applied to, it means that everyone has value; everyone should be treated as valuable. As the industry of private prisons rises, communities find themselves asking the moral question: is it right for a man to make profit off another man’s downfall? Although intriguing, it is not the right question to ask. Successful prisons are not defined by statistics at the end of a fiscal year, but by the quality of the prison. Taxpayers pay for criminals to be incarcerated for the safety of the community, but ideally prison would not

Privatizing prisons may be one way for the prison population to get back under control. Prisons are overcrowded and need extra money to house inmates or to build a new prison. The issue of a serious need for space needs to be addressed. “As a national average, it costs roughly $20,000 per year to keep an inmate in prison. There are approximately 650,000 inmates in state and local prisons, double the number five years ago. This costs taxpayers an estimated $18 billion each year. More than two thirds of the states are facing serious overcrowding problems, and many are operating at least 50 percent over capacity. (Joel, 1988)” Private prisons may be for profit, but if they can solve the issue of cost then it may be a